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State lawmakers on Thursday grilled University of Texas Chancellor Bill McRaven over the system’s 2015 purchase of 332 acres in Houston for more than $200 million, saying the Legislature was kept in the dark about the acquisition and still does not know what UT plans to do with the site.

“I believe your style is it’s your way or the highway. The Legislature is not involved in your decisions,” state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing. “In all due respect, I don’t think you give a damn what the Legislature thinks.”

McRaven apologized — as he has previously to lawmakers and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board — for not communicating more with state officials but said he wanted to keep the system’s interest in the land secret so that its value did not increase before the purchase.

McRaven also objected to the idea that he doesn’t care about the Legislature and defended his aggressive approach to the job.

“Too often university systems maintain the status quo because they’re forced to do so,” he said. “We intend to stay a great system, and in order to do that you have to take some risks you have to make some gambles.”

The purchase alarmed supporters of the University of Houston and others who see a UT presence in the state’s largest city as an unwanted development. McRaven, however, said Thursday that Houston will be for 21st Century America what New York City was in the 2oth century, and that the state’s premier university system should have a presence there.

McRaven said he will soon follow through on a promise to inform lawmakers early in the legislative session about UT’s plans for the site. He said it will not be a four-year diploma-issuing university, and it could be a research site to be used by all UT campuses, not just the Austin flagship.

State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, intensely questioned McRaven over the purchase and other UT expenditures, including money spent on marketing campaigns.

“It looks to me like an entity has more money than they know what to do with,” he said.

“A purchase of this magnitude is certainly something that I would say is unique in the history of Texas,” state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said. “Is there any discussion of anybody even blinking to the point of, ‘Hey, I need to call the governor, the lieutenant governor?’ … Was there any discussion to have a discussion at all?”

McRaven agreed to a request from Whitmire that the system hold off on making any decisions about the site’s future until Gov. Greg Abbott’s new nominees for three spots on the UT board of regents are confirmed.

In confirmation hearings Thursday morning, two of those nominees said they had concerns about the Houston purchase and the third said he did not have enough information to judge it.